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Published: 2 July 2009

The TEAM

Stage set at theatre festival for future masterpieces

FOR one month each summer, Islington’s acclaimed Almeida Theatre lets its hair down. Out go the Michael Attenborough masterpieces (or whatever it might be at the time), and in come the works in progress, unusual new writing and, potentially, the masterpieces of the future.
Kicking off next week with new work from the Yorkshire-based company Slung Low, the Almeida’s Summer Festival 2009 showcases never before seen theatre from New Yorkers The TEAM (Theatre of the Emerging American Moment); Tanya Ronder’s Or Nearest Offer performed by 15 youngsters from the theatre’s LAB youth scheme; and a new ethical drama from African company Tiata Fahodzi.
An installation by the Gate Theatre’s Lu Kemp and a concert by Heather Christian are also on the bill before Fahodzi’s celebration of African music closes the festival on August 1.
For Rachel Chavkin, The TEAM’s artistic director, the festival will serve as an “integral part of the writing process” for their latest piece, a public work-in-progress titled The American Capitalism Project. “It’s painful but we put our ideas in front of an audience. It ends up essentially making us honest about what we think we’re interested in and what we’re actually working on.”
The production is a journey across the US: through cowboy ballet, a Vegas croupier who believes she is Joan of Arc, and two outlaws on the run.
Despite the US slant to their work, Chavkin says the group’s work has been taken up quicker by English audiences.
“My big question is whether ideas about American freedom are inextricable from money. British audiences are incredibly excited to see Americans talking about America in critical ways – questioning the country, examining their actions. The country is more complex than Bush as our figurehead at that time might have implied.”
The departure of Bush has pushed their work in a different direction. “Obama’s presidency definitely changes the discussion,” admits Chavkin. “Our earlier works were hugely chaotic shows. I think now the work is less fused in anxiety. The panic was about what our country is becoming – now we are looking more at what has America been and where are we going.”
SIMON WROE

* The Almeida Theatre Summer Festival 2009 runs from July 8-August. 1 Almeida Street, N1. 020 7359 4404

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